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#RA2017 questions answered: Vaclav Koranda, VP HR, T-Systems Malaysia

We continue our series of Q&As with speakers from Recruitment Asia 2017, Malaysia, that took place on 31 Oct-1 Nov and produced by Priya Veeriah. Today, we speak to Vaclav Koranda, vice-president human resources, T-Systems Malaysia.

Nurturing young graduates through local-oriented programmes is within the purview of the talent pipeline for T-Systems. This is what Koranda has to say to the questions posted by delegates attending the conference via Pigeonhole:

Q1: How do you ensure your recruitment strategy is aligned with the long-term operational strategy - given your focus on hiring young graduates, who are typically considered job hoppers?

The graduate hiring I presented was a specific project at a point of time. I cannot say that hiring graduates is our core recruitment strategy.

Automation is another business driver I haven’t mentioned in my presentation (as it was not relevant in the context). Automation leads to reduction of low level jobs which are typical entry-level jobs for graduates.

As a result of that, the organisation transforms from a triangle to a diamond shape (from the job seniority perspective). Hence, it is not so difficult to provide career paths to the (now lesser) number of junior staff we have. However, higher volatility is typical for graduates, and exploration naturally occurs during the initial stage of one’s career until they find out what they really want in life.

Q2: How do you attract talent to your organisation creatively despite low awareness in the external market?

We collaborate a lot with schools and universities. However, the best source of talent for us has always been our employee referral programme – in which the brand awareness’ role is not so important.

The entire team works like a swarm and I never allow them to create silos and start internal dispute e.g. “HRD didn’t do this”, “HRBP didn’t do that”, etc.

Q3: Agility of HR is much needed and how backward/forward is T systems in this space?

Agility is a core part of my HR vision. We have adopted the agile principles into our daily work. Mainly we put people over policies and processes (always follow the purpose so that no one can hide behind a process as an excuse for work not done).

We develop our concepts in close collaboration with our business with a lot of proof of concept and prototyping. The entire team works like a swarm and I never allow them to create silos and start internal dispute e.g. “HRD didn’t do this”, “HRBP didn’t do that”, etc.

It was also well reflected in the example of the M100 career fair project I presented where the whole HR team contributed regardless of their actual job description and it was designed and organised in collaboration with employees and managers across the whole company.


Don’t miss the responses from the rest of the conference speakers. Other speakers who have provided solutions to questions raised in the conference include Simon Flint, CEO, Evolution Wellness (Celebrity Fitness and Fitness First), and Karin Clarke, director global solutions APAC, KellyOCG.

If you would like to provide any additional feedback on the conference, please write to privav@humanresourcesonline.net.

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